


i plead of thee, have sympathy for me

by archekoeln



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23853631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archekoeln/pseuds/archekoeln
Summary: you're crying and your tears drip on the bloodstains like the bleach washing away the evidence of your crime. you scrub and you scrub and you scrub, knuckles white from holding the sponge too hard.
Relationships: Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Nathalie Sancoeur
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	1. nathalie

**Author's Note:**

> written in the span of an afternoon because I like my hanahaki aus and I haven't written any for nathalie so, here it is??
> 
> unbeta'd! the use of second person pov and lowercase is purely because I want to. this might've also been inspired by [art by belasalata on ig](https://www.instagram.com/p/B_XgcPTF4Kg/) because i'm not original enough and i wrote this thing after seeing it.
> 
> title is from the mind electric by miracle musical.

the stink of bleach hits you in the nose and you want to throw up, even more so now that the thorns want out of your system. the roses are red when you cough, a mixture of blood and phlegm and spit and splatters of white from the oatmeal you had to force down your throat. they taste as they look and the churning in your gut tells you that more will come, and when they mix at the base of your throat again, you will want to swallow and let the acid in your stomach corrode the flowers.

you're crying and your tears drip on the bloodstains like the bleach washing away the evidence of your crime. you scrub and you scrub and you scrub, knuckles white from holding the sponge too hard. you think, _if i scrub hard enough,_ over and over again, wishing that the marks on the floor would vanish. but they don’t. they never will. when you look down, you’ll always see the drops of red and the petals and the thorns and the long stem that grew in the spaces between your ribs, twisting and coiling around your lungs until you couldn’t breathe.

every exhale is always painful. they tell you to cut it off. they tell you that you’ll die. it’s only a matter of time, and oh dear, time is never on your side, isn’t it? you’re already dying because the peacock miraculous wants a sacrifice to compensate its brokenness and you’re here and willing and you tell yourself that you have little to live for when that’s not the case at all.

you’re still scrubbing when you hear the lift whirl to life. your eyes are wide with fear and you take the rug beneath your feet and cover up the mess on the floor. blood oozes through but it will never fade and you know this, and you know he’ll find it when he sees that the red rug he set up is not where it’s supposed to be but _what can you do?_ everything else (the petals, the thorns, the stem) is covered in a thick wad of tissues and stuffed at the bottom of your trash can, underneath ripped sheets of adrien’s schedule that you’ve surely memorized by now.

you think, _he’s too early,_ and, _is it already over?,_ and as you try to listen, the bright pink of a miraculous ladybug passes through you. it does nothing to ease your chest and it does nothing to erase everything your hands have been touching and dirtying for the past hour.

when gabriel appears, you’re already back to your feet and he notices the rug but makes no comment on it. and that’s on _him,_ that he never says anything anymore when, in the past, he would fall to the ground just to catch you. when he would trail his fingers on your palms, trace the lines and hold you when you succumb to your weakness. when he would cradle your head and tell you, in a voice far too soft to be his, _thank you, thank you, thank you for doing this even when you shouldn’t, when i have never asked of this._

you excuse yourself before the silence overwhelms you and head to the bathroom on the other side of the manor, far away from him so that he might not hear you cough out another blooming rose fit for a dying woman. 

it is as beautiful as it is as sad. it is as red as the streak that shouldn’t define you.

when you come back, wiped clean and washed with cold water, gabriel is nowhere to be found. he’s probably back in his lair, probably monologuing about his newest failure to his wife. emilie would smile at him, would hold his shoulders, would squeeze tight and would say, _you will get them next time, my love,_ with the voice of an angel, high and lulling and sweet. you’ve fooled yourself into imagining their conversations, even when you’re never a witness to any of them, because you know emilie asked him of this, asked for his loyalty and his love, encapsulated her wish in a promise that she punched into his heart and wrapped into a delicate ball with his words, _of course, of course i will, my love, i promise, my love, i’ll see you soon, my love._

and you figure, if you die, when you die, you will die with emilie brought back to life. you will wither like all the roses on the bottom of your trash, swimming in the filth of all your feelings. whether the peacock takes you, or when the forces of creation and destruction choose you, you know it will be for him and his son and his wife who is waiting, sleeping peacefully, surrounded by the whites of hawkmoth’s butterflies and the whites of roses that she favored so, so much. 

but you figure, if you die, when you die before that should occur, suffocating because of a love that should never have existed in the first place, well, it’s not going to be your fault, isn’t it?


	2. gabriel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #pls understand that im a big liar pants and i wrote this [because of someones reblog](https://obby98.tumblr.com/post/616638789035737088/i-plead-of-thee-have-sympathy-for-me) so thanks!!!  
> #as if it wasnt angsty enough!!!  
> #pls also understand that this is deliberate nonsense and also bad

you will never let her know how you have to stop yourself when you find her prone, the strain of her miraculous already too heavy a weight on her shoulders. in the beginning, you would rush to her side, and you would cradle her on your chest, and you would lift even when your arms and your legs protest, and you would carry her, and you would always say, always whisper while her too cold cheek rested on your chest, _i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry, for asking you of this, for you doing this when you shouldn’t, when i should be the one._

you will never let anyone know about your feelings. you try not to let anything slip and you tell yourself that all the glances towards her direction when you hear her hacking coughs are because of a lingering sentimentality for what had been, _what could have been_. you _are_ friends and you ought to remain as friends for as long as emilie is still _alive_ and breathing and waiting for you to rescue her from her eternal slumber, _of course, of course i will, my love, i promise, my love, i’ll see you soon, my love._

but one day, when you find nathalie on your floor, lying unconscious and swimming in her own fluids, all you think about is _regret._ you will never let her know how you almost lost yourself when she refused to wake, when her body was lying on a couch and remaining absolutely still despite the breaths she released in puffs, when your son called for her and yet she never stirred.

and that regret tasted vile, like a dollop of something bitter, like the sun-kissed skin of emilie’s body, like the burning red of nathalie’s cheeks. it tasted like a betrayal, and you're aware of it, slithering on your tongue like a delicacy.

this is emilie all over again. this is your fault. this is your fault and you’ve done nothing to stop it.

you will never tell her how you ignored the flowers surrounding her body, some sort of mental self-preservation or how you disregarded the red roses that framed her that day. you will let her find out for herself, how your face twisted with agony or how you heaved your own wad of white roses, realization slipping past your bloodied lips. speckles of red mingle with white and once you gain your bearings, you never think to delete the footage caught by your cameras, because, maybe, _maybe,_ you want her to _know._

or maybe, _maybe,_ you want evidence to tell yourself that you [redacted] her. 

you will never let her know how you challenged the heroes to a standoff. how you faced them and how you spilled your objectives without all the pomp and glamour that you’re known for. how you still have trickery up your sleeves when they come, _hook, line, and sinker,_ to your appeal to a final showdown. how you shove the broken miraculous onto your chest and call upon it, _duusu, duusu, listen to me. duusu, transforme-moi,_ even when duusu tearfully cried for nathalie instead.

you know that she will find out about your victory, when she feels your touch on her too-pale skin. what you will never let her know is how your regret ran deeper than the marianas, from her collapse to the discovery that _adrien is chat noir,_ to watching your son lay on the ground, by your feet, dazed and confused and crying and wailing while paris burned in the background as a storm of butterflies swept across the skies, all white against red.

and you will never let her know how you cried along with your son, because everything you have done to paris, to her, to him, to your wife still waiting for the promise you’re at the verge of _breaking_ , because _everything_ meant nothing at all when you can no longer return to what had been.

and you will never let her know how you left adrien and the other girl on that rooftop, whisking away the ring and the earrings, whispering _‘i’m sorry’_ and _ _‘_ forgive me’ _over and over again. you will never let her know how you held onto her hand when you asked for your wish, when the gods blessed you with the one thing you have fought for, had ruined paris for, had ruined her life for.

_revive her. bring her back. anything, anything to see her alive again._

you will never let her know that you meant her. she will figure it out on her own and only time will tell if she will accept it.

and you will realize, when she wakes up from her sleep, in the hands of a man who could only, _finally,_ smile when she stirs, that a wish so vaguely worded, so passionately spoken, is always the hardest to grant.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu @ [telmes!](https://telmes.tumblr.com/)


End file.
